Postcard Peace Palace 1922

Description

The Peace Palace opened its gates in 1913, after six years of construction. It is a large, square-shaped building with a plinth of grey Belgian natural stone and facades of Dutch red bricks in a combined neo-renaissance style. It has sloping slate roofs, two different towers and a west wing facade similar in quality to the front facade.

Embodiment of an ideaDue to its location, size and architectural quality, the Peace Palace is by Dutch standards a building of uncommon grandeur and that was precisely the intention. This project was not just about housing a judicial organisation; it was about the embodiment of an idea. What the Court lacked in authority as an international judicial institution in the early years, was more than compensated for by the formidable character, the artistic furnishings and exuberant symbolism of its housing. The Peace Palace fitted perfectly with the dream of world peace as cherished by the First Hague Peace Conference. After its completion, it was hailed as a true dream palace for world peace, "just as powerful and grand as the idea of world peace itself’", to quote a Dutch writer of the time.